Duelund conversion to DIY Helix Geometry Cabling

In all fairness, I would install better XLR connectors to conduct the test. Furutech make excellent XLR connectors at the same price point than KLE.

I would also give them the mandatory 150 hours soaked time before reviewing their performance. I have just upgrade my Helix speaker and 1 RCA cables and can testify that some funky things are happening between the 25-40 hours mark.

Cheers,

Norco74

Hi Steve,

For clarity, are you using the Neotech or the 5N 20 AWG wire? Cost of the latter is half of the Neotech. Don’t know what justifies it aside from the sleeving which will need to be stripped anyway.

Also, how’s the cable stiffness between the single and double neutral assembly?

Cheers

Daniel

Hey Steve,

Thanks for the clarifications. Before I move to the next stage of modifications, I will try to understand the cost differences between the OCC5N and the Neotech UPOCC silver wires. Looks like all the silver are created equal.

Cheers

Daniel

I have 2 pairs of Helix speaker cables from which I am driving a pair of Maggie 1.6 in bi-wiring mode with excellent results.

Still using the Duelund cotton live wire, I was prepared to invest in making the UPOCC upgrade when I checked Steve’s latest mod on his website. The airgap mod is a logical one in this whole Helix development scheme of things.

I am prepared to jump from the Duelund live wire to the dual UPOCC airgap mod but before I have some questions about cable oxydation and handling.

- How does long term oxydation affect the sonics on a solid core wire? We all know how it can be on a multistrand cable but as for a solid wire, anyone has info on this?

-Would you advise to use latex/cotton gloves when manipulating to bare copper so any contaminants present on your fingers won’t end up on the bare wire?

-Would it be beneficial to use Deoxit on the solid wire before inserting it in the PTFE tube? Not sure how to technically achieve this but it could be as simple as spraying the product on a shop towel and run the wire through it while inserting it in the PTFE tube.

- Aside from sealing the PTFE with hot glue and a piece of shrinktubing, what else can be done to prevent wire oxydation?

Cheers,

Daniel

Double 18 AWG in teflon tubing for speaker cables was a real upgrade to my ears but not until I have swapped the KLE bananas plugs for some rolled berylium copper gold plated ones. The KLE were not compatible with my Bryston 4B amp. While I love KLE RCA connectors, their bananas plugs were too short and didn’t made proper contact due to their lack of stiffness. The new plugs were crimped and then soldered with Mundorf Silver/Gold solder.

I have an extra set of 8 new KLE banana plugs if someone needs it. The used plugs can also go as well. PM me if you are interested.

I agree with Steve, there’s some noticeable degradation happening in SQ around the 25h mark that is slowly improving from H=45 to 100. From my experience on resoldering banana plugs on broken speaker cables, H=48 is usually how much time it takes to significantly break-in the solder and connector. I use Cardas gold/silver solder and rolled berylium/copper banana connectors.

I found out the Helix cables (interconnect and speakers) sound best after hundreds hours of playing and that would equal to a few months of music listening in my case. I read somewhere that it takes around 700h to break-in cryo parts which could also be an explanation about the long break-in time of these cable.

I have built most versions of these cables (Duelund Poly, Duelund Cotton, UPOCC Teflon and UPOCC Air/Teflon). One thing for sure, all of these cables sound extremely good.

One must remember that all of this is subjective and unless you have only changed one cable in your system, it would be hard to assess and measure the improvment over time. YMMV.

I would wait after the 400 hours burn-in mark before making any fine tuning to the design.

@tecknik 

Be careful here!

What voltage and current this DC cable will handle?

Does anyone have tried the Helix speaker cable to fire up a REL subwoofer using the high level input? Just curious if the improvement will be noticeable.

Exactly. Expandable nylon is very durable compared to cheap PET sleeving and will give a very professionnal look to your PC, IC and speaker cables. As it is not as expandable as PET, it better installed as a loose fit

Cheers

Daniel

Well done @lemonhaze !

I am not sure what’s going on but TFA and PCX have been out of some of our favorite sizes of MIL Spec Silver Coated and UPOCC wires. The offer and availabilty have been less and less for many months now. Is there a supp’y chain issue for these type of wires?

I have built the Helix cables for a few years now and have tried the many combinations suggested as they were made available on Steve’s site. I have recently switchover a Neotech 2 x AWG18 UPOCC power cable for a 14 AWG Duelund PVC on my Bryston 3.14 DAC streamer. I am quite surprised by the results. The Duelund seems to handle the sound texture way better than the Neotech version. Less harsh on the high frequencies, better instruments separation and a small increase in the spatial details department. My guess is that the cable type have more noticeable effects on low level source components than preamp and amp. Experimenting is the only way of finding what suits your ears.best.